AGAINST ALL ODDS "sing along"
2008 was quite eventful, compared to its preceding year which gave birth to the Text project of 2007.
The project achieved part of its aims that year and the feedbacks that we got gave us the impetus to run the tracks again this year. And as usual, we ran on the WIN-ning lane.
Besides reaching out through SMS alone in the Text project -era, we moved a step further in the later part of 2007 (based on the earlier outcome of our research) to expand the project into something that could reach out to more people at the same time, in a more relatable way they would live to remember. And through our efforts, the “ Sing along Project ” came into existence.
The Sing Along project was however expected to give birth to an album of HIV/AIDS comprehensive issues in twelve (12) months, but in its twelve months, it could only boast of a single track on radio.
Reasons for the album deadlock
Lack of funding; this was a major contributor to the inability of the set goal to be met. And this can be attributed to the fact that as young people who are still in school, we were unable to fund such a massive project on our own.
Lack of support; we wrote to numerous organizations but got no favourable response from those were kind enough to reply. The majority of those approached never gave us a feedback.
Also, the individuals approached to assist gave us excuses as to why they cannot be involved in assistance or by any other means. Some even went extra-length advising us to quit, as there are no prospects of financial profitability at the end of the project.
However, besides this enumerated reasons for failure to put the album compilation together, we went ahead and did creditably well with the song (Think-Twice) in 2008. We had it on a couple of Radio stations in Lagos, Ogun and Ibadan and it enjoyed considerably airplay for a while.
Challenges
It is believed that so many international organizations were funding youth-led projects on HIV awareness/advocacy. And for us to appear as a formal organization as Wellbeing Initiative Nigeria (WIN), it must have been a well grounded Non Governmental / Not for Profit Organization (NGO/NPO) with strong financially backing. Hence, at every point in time, we were billed based on that basis of an organization doing business with a media house.
We had to meet people, especially music D.J’s on individual basis and had to change name and approached them as an artist so that the charges could be reduced. The strategy did work for a while but the airplay the song was enjoying stopped when they weren’t getting tipped by us anymore.
Successes
On having the song on Radio for a couple of months, we were invited for two notable interviews and a couple of public performance both in and out of school.
We also dropped a copy of the song at the Journalist Against Aids (JAAIDS) office at Ogba-Lagos.
The first ever interview we had was on MUSIC-MAKERS, a programme anchored by Bunmi Osotekun on Voice of Nigeria (VON) Lagos.
The Voice of Nigeria Lagos is a national station
transmitting live on the internet and on the short wave band.
The second interview was on Splash 105.5 fm, a privately owned media house of international standards. It transmits from the largest city in West Africa, Ibadan-Oyo State.
The programme – MAD HOUSE, hosted by Femi Ojo, Mr Desmond and the Nutty Professor is an unparalleled interactive youth programme with massive followership in the whole of south-western Nigeria.
Thirdly, we had a great time teaching about HIV/AIDS with practical experiences and performing advocacy songs at the Digital Peers International (DPI)’s DIGITEST 2008 programme. DIGITEST is a national programme on information technology and its relationship with other aspect of human existence is annually organised for young people aged 8-18. This year’s edition hosted in lagos state was a massive success. And with close to a thousand participants as our audience, nothing could have been more satisfying. This audience sang every song along with us, and you could see a sea of appreciative faces, that were grateful to have been present at the hall.
There was this young boy of about age 10 or thereabout, who penned down useful points while the teachings were on, sang every song with us religiously and requested a copy of our C.D so he could take home for his siblings.
The song’s been done a couple of times at school gigs. And we have forwarded it also to FLAVA, a BBC sponsored programme now on 110 radio stations nationwide.
Also, we have the full-downloadable version of the song (think-twice) on www.ilike.com/dametrows, www.facebook.com , and on www.hi5.com
